


+1. A Friend in Need

by sahiya



Series: Five Times Someone Took Care of Neal and One Time He Did the Care-Taking [6]
Category: White Collar
Genre: Drinking & Talking, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Prison
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-13
Updated: 2013-12-13
Packaged: 2018-01-04 13:49:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1081751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sahiya/pseuds/sahiya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the days after Peter was released from prison, Neal tried to keep an eye on him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	+1. A Friend in Need

**Author's Note:**

  * For [anodyneer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/anodyneer/gifts).



> Happy Holidays, Anodyneer!!

In the days after Peter was released from prison, Neal tried to keep an eye on him. It wasn’t easy; he had just a few things going on, and he was very concerned about what would happen when, inevitably, Hagan and the FBI both tried to tug on their leashes at the same time. It wasn’t made any easier by Peter deciding he wanted some distance. But Neal had done this before and Peter hadn’t. 

He thought he was the only one who saw it, because he was the only one who was looking for it. Peter was doing a masterful job of cowboying up, and to anyone else it looked like he’d walked away from six weeks in prison no worse for wear. But Neal saw what other people didn’t. He saw the way Peter sometimes spaced out in a meeting, just for a moment or two, the way that he sometimes looked tired in a way he never had before.

The way that he never, ever, not even jokingly, threatened to send Neal back to prison. 

Not that he’d done that a _lot_ , except in the very early days of their partnership. After the first three or four months, it happened only occasionally and always in jest. But now, he didn’t do it at all. Ever. Sometimes Neal would see him start to say something and then stop, a fleeting expression of something Neal couldn’t quite identify crossing his face. He thought it might have been horror, or possibly mortification.

To Neal’s chagrin, he found that he sort of missed the jokes. In the beginning, he probably would’ve said they were his least favorite thing about Peter Burke, but eventually they’d come to signal business as usual. Now they were missing, and that was Neal’s biggest tip-off that whatever Peter said, whatever everyone else thought, things were _not_ “business as usual.” 

Three weeks after Peter was released from prison, Neal arranged with Moz to get El out of the house for the evening. He knew that Peter would never talk to him about anything in front of Elizabeth. Mozzie secured tickets to a gallery opening, something Peter would rather have oral surgery without anesthesia than go to. Neal waited down the block until the two of them left, and then, bottle of expensive whiskey in hand, he rang the doorbell. 

“Neal,” Peter said, when he opened the door. “What are you doing here?”

Neal held the whiskey up. “Happy Friday,” he said. “Moz mentioned that he and Elizabeth were going to a gallery opening, so I thought I’d swing by.”

Peter stood aside to let him in. “I’d have thought you’d want to go to the opening,” he said. 

“Outside my radius,” Neal replied easily. “Whiskey?”

Peter hesitated, and Neal held his breath. This was probably the sort of thing Peter had told himself he was giving up. But Neal knew Peter Burke, and he knew that he was not the type to just throw away a friendship, not even when he probably should. After a moment, Peter gave a shrug. “Sure, why not. Is this the stuff you forged?”

“Nope,” Neal said, as he fetched two whiskey glasses from the Burkes’ china cabinet. “This is the real thing.”

He waited until they were both on their third glass; he was feeling warm and mellow, and from the way Peter had sort of melted into his chair, he thought Peter was probably feeling the same. The conversation lulled. Looking at his glass instead of Peter, Neal remarked, “This is the sort of thing I missed in prison, the little luxuries you don’t notice till you can’t have them anymore. Like a good glass of whiskey with a friend.”

Peter didn’t say anything for a long time. Neal looked over at him and saw that he was eyeing his glass as well, turning it this way and that to see the play of light in the amber liquid. Neal waited, patient. 

“I want to ask you something,” Peter said at last. “I’ve read your file, so I know - I know it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. But I have to ask. Neal -”

“Nothing bad happened to me,” Neal said, very quietly. “I promise you, Peter. Nothing bad happened to me. The worst was that I was bored and lonely a lot.”

Peter nodded. “You’ve said that to me before,” he said. “And I used to think that didn’t sound so bad. But now, now I get it. Being bored and lonely on the outside isn’t the same as it is in prison, is it? If I’m bored or lonely here I can put a game on or call Elizabeth, but in prison, all I had was the inside of my own head and I thought - I thought for sure I’d get lost there.”

Neal reached for the bottle and poured them both another finger or two of whiskey. “Some people do,” he said. “And that works okay while you’re inside, but once you’re out, you have to find a way to live in the world again.”

Peter looked at him. “And you think I’m not?”

Neal shrugged. “I think you’re doing a very good job of making it look like you are. Really, it’s top-shelf work - I couldn’t do any better myself. But I think you’re struggling more than you want anyone to know.”

Peter looked away again. “Maybe I am,” he said. “I just keep - I keep thinking about everyone I’ve arrested over the years, all the people who were eventually convicted, and I keep wondering - did they all deserve it? Did you deserve it?”

Neal managed to hide his reaction behind his glass. “Come on, Peter,” he said, lightly. “We both know I deserved a lot more time than I got.”

“Legally, yes,” Peter said. “But morally? Ethically?”

And there, Neal thought - that was the crux of the matter. Peter was an FBI agent and he was about to be named ASAC of the New York City white collar division. He couldn’t afford these sorts of doubts. But, on the other hand, Neal reflected, if he wasn’t having them, he wouldn’t be Peter Burke. 

Peter was sitting in the arm chair with his feet up on the ottoman. Neal got up and went to sit on the ottoman. He thought Peter might object to the invasion of personal space, but he didn’t. 

“You’re a good agent, Peter,” he said. “You don’t put innocent people away for the sake of a win. I can’t think of a single case in the last three years where we weren’t sure the person was guilty. Can you?”

“No,” Peter admitted. “But - I don’t know, Neal. I just don’t know.” He looked down at his glass and then knocked it back in one go. “How did you forgive me?” he asked. 

Neal had never thought of it that way. “I didn’t,” he said, and Peter flinched. “There was nothing to forgive. You arrested me. That was your job.” He thought back to a conversation he’d had with June on his first night of (relative) freedom. How far they’d come. “I was the fox and you were the hound. It wasn’t your fault.”

“But I put you there,” Peter said, sounding as though the words were physically painful for him. “I put you there for four years, and I’m just - I never thought I would regret it, but part of me does, part of me regrets putting handcuffs on you that day.”

Neal shook his head. “Don’t,” he said. “The truth is, Peter, that if you hadn’t caught me, I wouldn’t have stopped. Not until a job went bad and I got killed. You probably saved my life by arresting me when you did.”

“Maybe,” Peter said. “But I’m still - I’m sorry.”

“Peter -”

“Wait.” Peter pushed himself up so he was less slumped in the chair. “Listen. Maybe you’re right. Maybe prison did save your life. But I’m sorry you had to go through it. I was there for six weeks, and I can’t imagine four years. And I can’t - I can’t ever put you back there. Please,” Peter said, and he reached out and caught Neal by the hand. “Please don’t do anything that would make me have to put you back there.”

Neal went very still. In that moment, he wanted to promise Peter that. He wanted more than anything else in this life to promise Peter that he wouldn’t do anything to put him that position, ever. But he couldn’t. Not with Hagan out there, holding the other end of Neal’s leash. “I’ll do my best,” he said at last. 

Peter let go of his hand. “That’s not a promise.”

“It’s as close as I can come,” Neal said. He put his hand on Peter’s ankle, right where his anklet would be on his own, and squeezed gently. “I’ll do my best, Peter. I promise you that much. And hey, you know, my best is usually pretty good.”

“That’s true,” Peter said. He was quiet for a while, and then he pulled his feet down off the ottoman and stood up. “Need to use the bathroom,” he said, and trudged up the stairs to the second floor. 

When he came back down, the spell was broken; they put a movie on and sat, drinking whiskey and talking about things that didn’t matter, until Peter fell asleep in his chair. Neal stood up, only slightly wobbly, and left a note for El telling her to make sure Peter drank some water before she put him to bed. Then he went out, shutting the door quietly behind him. 

Nothing was fixed, he thought as he headed down the street to nearest subway station. But at least now he knew what was broken.


End file.
